Hannah Arendt

In 1961, a German Jewish philosopher was given the chance to cover
the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolph Eichmann, the man responsible for the
deportation of Jews from Germany, for The New Yorker magazine. Her
husband, Heinrich Blüche (Axel Milberg), was fearful that returning
to Germany would plunge her into depression, but there was no stopping "Hannah
Arendt."

Laura:
Cowriter (with Pam Katz)/director Margarethe von Trotta
("Rosenstrasse," "Vision") has made a powerful drama about ideas and
Barbara Sukowa ("Vision") gives a complex performance of a woman who was
attacked for 'defending' Eichmann, who continued a friendship with her first
love and teacher, existentialist Martin Heidegger (Klaus Pohl), despite his
having joined the Nazi Party ('There are some things that are bigger than
one person').

Von Trotta captures a New York City of intellectuals living in dark apartments
crammed with books in yellowing high rise buildings. In these
offices, living rooms and studies, philosophical and political arguments
are aired in intimate meetings and gatherings of friends and colleagues. In
one dynamic scene, Hannah, Heinrich and their guests debate the controversial
kidnapping of Eichmann in Buenos Aires by Israeli Mossad and Shin Bet agents
who smuggled him out of the country to ensure a trial in Israel while American
novelist Mary McCarty (Janet McTeer, "Albert Nobbs") looks on from a doorway,
Hans Jonas (Ulrich Noethen, "Downfall") trying to translate th conversation
for her. McCarthy's bemusement is an ironic foreshadowing of the American
media's subsequent inability to understand Arendt's bold assessment of the
'banality of evil.'

There are flashbacks to Hannah's youthful times with Heidegger and her
subsequent meeting with him on her fact finding mission before heading to
Jerusalem. We see her sitting alternately in the courtroom and in a
press room, smoking furiously, during the trial. She's shocked to see
the 'glass cage' ('to protect us from him?') and by her own initial assessment
- 'He's not what I imagined at all...not spooky...He's a nobody.' Von
Trotta uses black and white archival footage of Eichmann and the effect is
a bit jarring - here might have been a real artistic reason to colorize film
in order to blend the real with recreations. She also uses frequent
cuts to Sukowa's face projecting a range of emotions and the effect is not
unlike one of those Vanity Fair 'In Character: Actors Acting' pieces - she's
engrossed, amused, perplexed. But it is hard not to be moved by witness
testimony, shredding in its devastating simplicity, nor to be engrossed by
Eichmann's own words, which Hannah accurately recaps as almost prideful in
his accomplishments as an administrator.

The film continues to amass power, though, and it reaches its pitch not
during the trial, but with the aftermath of Arendt's reporting. She's
vilified for her unpolitically correct assessment of Jewish leaders' cooperation
with the Nazis as having been integral to their success and for stating
she believed Eichmann's statement that he was not an anti-Semite, just following
orders. Fifty years later, von Trotta's given us a reminder that what
we now accept as proven and basic facts and concepts caused outrage in their
time and that it required a great deal of bravery for Arendt to continue
to express and defend her appraisal of how the Holocaust was systematically
implemented. Sukowa gives a long, vibrant, impassioned speech at film's
end, holding a class of German students rapt, but the college board tries
to get rid of her. 'You ban books and accuse me of indecency?' - indeed.

B+

Robin:
Jewish-born philosopher Johanna “Hannah” Arendt (Barbara Sukowa) rejected
the “philosopher” title given her and considered herself, instead, a political
theorist. In 1961, she was commissioned by New Yorker magazine to cover the
upcoming Adolph Eichmann war crimes trial in Jerusalem. She eventually wrote
the promised series of articles and coined the term “the banality of evil.”
Her story, during that turbulent time, is brought to the screen with “Hannah
Arendt.”

I was only familiar with Hannah Arendt and her work on a surface level before
seeing “Hannah Arendt.” Director/co-writer Margarethe von Trotta (with co-scribe
Pam Katz) brings one part of her life, probably her most famous, if not notorious,
to the public view and the result is a gripping, well-produced, directed and
acted biography that sets Hannah apart from the pack.

Free-thinking Hannah, when she covers the Eichmann trial, realizes that
the man was not a monster, but a willing pawn who gave up free thought to
have others doing his thinking. His crime, his defense claimed, was “just
obeying orders.” This revelation blew some people away but it was her big
bomb that brought her to fame (or infamy, to some) – she stated, in her New
Yorker articles, that the Jewish leadership in Germany before the war made
deals with the Nazis, ostensibly to protect their flock. The statement earned
Hannah death threats.

Barbara Sukowa is powerful as the chain-smoking and independent Hannah and
inhabits her character with passion. The whole film is steeped in the controversy
she brought out with her radical views. Though born Jewish, Hannah tells her
long time friend and colleague, Kurt Blumenfeld (Michael Degen), “I’ve never
loved any people, why should I love the Jews.” This is attributed to her
long affair with German philosopher Martin Heidegger (Klaus Pohl), a man
who was sympathetic to the Nazis. I think it was because she had a strong
will and intelligent mind. Hannah did not let others do the thinking for her
and von Trotta does a fine job bringing her to life. I give it a B+.